Sweet Summer Pastels

Hello!

The blog hop last week was fantastic wasnt it?  There were some incredible projects and I was itching to have a play after going through all the loops.  Dont forget, you only have until the end of February to get your free stamp sets!
  1) by ordering the starter kit - (free set from SU + an extra one from me!)
  2) by placing an order for £45 or more (not including delivery charge)
  3) by holding a workshop with sales over £300.

I havent used my Stampin' Pastels in at least 12 months, even after getting the update set with all the new colours in.  But I was in my element colouring this set, Sweet Summer is THE BEST set for for using pastels, markers, watercolour crayons or pencils!!!

The flower stems were stamped in Pear Pizzazz ink onto Whisper White card then the heads stamped (lining up with the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig) in Cherry Cobbler.  The leaves and flower heads were coloured in using blender pens and my pastels.  A small rhinestone was added to the central flower. 

I do struggle for ideas with layouts for cards but as I was placing all the elements I wanted to use, I came up with this and I quite like it.  The Peach Parfait designer series paper was lined up with a mat of Wild Wasabi using my grid paper and then adhered in place.  Then I wrapped a length of Peach Parfait Stitched Poly Ribbon around the layers and attached it to the Cherry Cobbler card blank.  The stamped card with the flowers was raised up on dimensionals and attached to the Wild Wasabi cardstock.

The bee and the butterfly were left overs from the ones I used for last weeks Blog Hop project and were just raised on dimensionals before placing on the card. 

With a bit of luck, Sara, Joanne and myself will be having a mini blog hop next Sunday to show you some card candy each of us made with some of the current stamp sets including Natures Nest, Bundle of Love and Happiness Share.  They are gorgeous and I am sure they will give you some great ideas so make sure you bob back to look.

One more thing before I go, I we have our next Barnsley Crop next Saturday, 5th Feb at the Doghill Community Centre in Shafton. So if you want to come over and have a play, please do!  Our Technique Club is starting and will cover two different techniques you can do with plain stamps to get various effects.  We all want to get the most out of the stamps we already have, dont we?!

Hope you are enjoying the weekend? 
Jan
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Sale-A-Bration Blog Hop!

Oooo, are you in for treat today!!!

Its the In Love With Stamping Sale-A-Bration Blog Hop.

So grab a cuppa and settle down for some serious chill out time and inspiration from SU Demos from all over the country.

With luck (and fingers crossed, technology) you should have arrived from Natalie's Blog. She has some amazing projects on her blog hasnt she?  Well she is a hard act to follow but, here goes...

The card is a CASE of one demonstrated at the European Convention in November last year and has a real wow factor when you see it done.  The swirly stem from Sweet Summer was randomly stamped in black Stazon ink onto Glossy White cardstock and then a white crayon was used to trace selected parts of the design. 

Baja Breeze ink was applied to the card using a brayer and where the crayon has been traced, the ink resists leaving the area white.  All you have to do then is just wipe over the card to get rid of any stray ink and the white card underneath 'pops' out.  The 3 flowers and tiny butterfly were done in the same way and cut out.

The glossy card was trimmed and then matted and layered onto So Saffron card and a strip of Peach Parfait 1/2" Stitched-Poly ribbon was wrapped around the layer before it was applied to the Peach Parfait card blank.

The sentiment is from the So Happy For You SAB set and was stamped onto Glossy White card and punched put with the 1 3/4" Oval Large punch.  It was then mounted on a punched 1 3/8" Oval Large piece of Baja Breeze cardstock and added to the card blank.

The flowers and butterfly were mounted on dimensionals and Basic Rhinestones added to the flowers before they were positioned on the finished card.

The stamped candle is something I have been thinking about for a while.  The candle has square sides so all I did was use my heat gun to gently heat the area I wanted to stamp on, to soften the wax (taking care not to melt it!).  The stamp was just pressed into the wax and left for a few seconds to cool before removing. 

I was a little worried about damaging the stamp with the heat, but it was fine as it was only in the wax for a few seconds.  The photo isnt too clever but I am really impressed with the result.  Heres another picture showing the candle just after I stamped it.

To finish it off I just used my Eyelett Border punch along a strip of Baja Breeze card and wrapped a lenth of Peach Parfait ribbon around the bottom of the candle.

Heres the other project I made - a last minute substitution - using the Bliss set.  This is my favourate SAB set and works great with the Vintage Vogue set and Very Vintage wheel.  I will apologise now for the poor quality of the picture, but it was quite late when I took the photo (if I get the chance I will try to replace with a better photo!)

I have had some canvas's in a cupboard for a few years and never really knew what to do with them so decided to make something different for a change. 

I used the Very Vintage wheel and Bashful Blue ink to cover the whole of the canvas.  The edges of the canvas didnt cover very well, so I used the flourish stamp inked in Marina Mist and made borders for the top and bottom.

The letters for 'Love' are from On Board Alphabet Soup and I used Whisper White Craft ink on them as a base before sponging Marina Mist ink on the edges.  Then I inked the flourish stamp in Night of Navy and stamped directly over the top.

I have seen these large ribbon flowers quite alot lately and they were really easy to make.  I just did a running stitch along one edge of Bashful Blue 1 1/4" Grosgrain striped ribbon and pulled it tight to gather up.  The edges were stitched together to keep them tidy.  I just added buttons to the centre and stitched them in place.

The small flowers and butterflies were inked using the Rock and Roll technique in Marina Mist with Night of Navy and Rose Red with Pink Pirouette.  They were then cut out, had basic pearls adhered were and attached to the canvas along with the ribbon flowers.

Well, thats it from me for today (unless I manage to sneek a few hours in my craft room that is!).  Thanks for stopping by, I will now pass you over to Anthea who is the next blog on your tour.

Jan
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